By Neto Baptiste
The planned construction of a basketball complex for the Urlings community is still on the cards.
This is according to Member of Parliament for St Mary’s South Constituency, Kelvin “Shugy” Simon, who first announced the initiative last September leading into the October 24, 2023 by-election against Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party’s (ABLP), Dwayne George.
Simon, speaking recently on the Good Morning Jojo sports show, said some changes are being made to the original concept in an effort to reduce cost.
“We’re actually changing the plans somewhat and tweaking it a little just so we could keep the cost down, because initially, what we were planning to build would have cost somewhere within the range of $800,000 so in my mind it doesn’t make sense, even though somebody is donating it, to spend all that money on one project when we can use funds to do other things within the community so we’re in the process of downsizing it or tweaking it a little so that we can save some money that we could put to other ventures within the communities,” he said.
Simon revealed last year that the complex, which will be privately funded, comes fully equipped with changing rooms, bathrooms and stands and will be erected at the site of the dilapidated government-constructed basketball court in Urlings.
The United Progressive Party (UPP) MP said he has not yet consulted with the relevant authorities as he is still in the infancy stages of the project but does not expect any pushback.
“We haven’t really gone ahead where DCA … is concerned because we are still in the drafting phase, so once we would have completed that, then the next step would be the DCA to get the permission. We are making sure we dot our I’s and cross out T’s because it is just so unfortunate that people would try to stand in the way of progress,” he said.
Simon said that similar projects have also been earmarked for other communities within the constituency.
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